Nikki Hind’s fashion brand Blind Grit is built entirely by and around people who live with a disability or mental illness. Credit: Nikki Hind

Australia’s first blind fashion designer, Nikki Hind, lost half of her vison in both eyes after suffering a stroke while pregnant in her mid-30s. The stroke left her legally blind, since she’d been unable to see with her left eye since birth.

“Before my pregnancy I had been working in public relations and event management and it was a huge shock to the system to lose my sight while also learning to be a mum,” Hind told not-for-profit support group Vision Australia. Her focus was on her little one and it wasn’t until about 10 years later that she started to think about how the vision loss might affect her employment opportunities, she said.

Going through a tough period of financial stress and isolation, Hind decided to reach for her childhood dream of becoming a fashion designer. Enrolling in a technical and further education (TAFE) course in fashion design, she learnt the skills she needed to bring her ideas to life.

Creating her first collection, including producing photography and marketing materials, Hind said she felt she had finally broken through her post-traumatic stress and achieved her dreams. “Fashion design reconnected me to glimpses of the best parts of myself – feelings of capability, purpose, fun, excitement, ambition and optimism. I decided if I was going to do this, I wanted to bring along with me as many others in need of reconnecting with their dreams as I could.”

This was when the idea for ‘Blind Grit’, her new fashion label, was born, she said. Founded in 2016, Hind’s label employs people with disabilities and challenges. Its inspirational street- and fitness-wear has since been shown at Melbourne Fashion Week.

Eds note: Hind is the subject of Nikki Hind: Dressed for Success, one of Vision Australia’s three Big Visions book series showcasing successful Australians living with blindness or low vision. For more, see https://shop.visionaustralia.org/